Students Head Back Outside In D.c. Area

October 26, 2002|By Vicki Kemper National Correspondent

KENSINGTON, Md. — "Three, two, one!" screamed the gifted-and-talented students at Kensington Parkwood Elementary School. Just as the countdown reached its crescendo, teacher Marilyn Ochs ripped open the blinds on their classroom window, letting natural light filter in for the first time since the Washington-area sniper attacks began three weeks ago.

At Bel Pre Primary School, only blocks from the bus stop where the snipers claimed their 13th and final victim, first-graders released balloons before dancing outside, encouraged by their teachers to let their fears float away as well.

All across Montgomery County on Friday morning, as schoolteachers ceremonially opened the blinds and tore down the black paper that had been shielding their students from the snipers' deadly sights, children were screaming and yelling and once again enjoying outdoor recess. Yet even as teachers and parents celebrated the end of lockdowns and Code Blue and indoor recess, it was clear that it would take more than one day's freedom and two suspects' arrest to restore normality to the lives of the area's children.

Especially for the younger kids, security is not like a favorite sweater that feels better after it has been lost and found again. In the neighborhoods where sniper bullets felled five parents, recapturing the carefree essence of childhood is going to take a lot of forgetting and a little time.

"There are two snipers," an 8-year-old boy told his classmates, staring down at his lap. "There's a little boy and a man, and the little boy's mom is still out there hiding."

If other children were less confused and frightened about the circumstances that ended their school-time quarantine, they expressed ambivalence about Friday's activities.

"It was kind of weird" to have recess outside again, said a third-grade boy at Chevy Chase Elementary, where officials allowed a reporter to speak to students only if their names weren't used.

Outdoor recess "was great but I wasn't used to it," said another third-grader.